Seven Sons Blended Duo
8yo Blended Malt & 11yo Blended Scotch | 46.7% ABV
Following along.
With so much whisky at our fingertips, it's an unprecedented time to get enthusiastic about whisky. Today, we are further privileged to be able to follow an individual distillery's journey.
We're a lucky bunch. Today, the plethora of availability amidst online retailers, at auctions or our local brick-and-mortar specialists, there's no end to the range of whiskies on offer and conveniently within our reach.
If like me, you've came across comments like, 'whisky was better in the old days', I simply have no way of knowing that unless I was there, or, can afford to fork out eye-watering sums in order to experience and taste liquid made in the previous decades before I found this whisky passion of mine.
But today, we’re luckier still, with more and more newer distilleries laying foundations, creating their own liquid and steadily announcing inaugural releases. As they progress in their ventures into creating whisky, we and I can pick up a bottle every now and then to truly understand the journey this distillery is going through. With flavour, cask variation, barley varieties and often single cask releases, I find it very exciting to experience first hand how a new distillery finds itself in the ever growing whisky market in Scotland, never mind the rest of the UK, Ireland and beyond.
A distillery being covered today falls into that remit I think. Founded by Kerry & Derek Campbell the distillery opened its doors (no pun intended) in September 2022, and began their whisky making journey all the way up in John O'Groats. It's a distillery located at the most northerly settlement on the UK mainland and hosts the most northerly distillery too, not to mention a name located the furthest north of the alphabet.
8 Doors are a distillery finding their feet and building a brand using two things while they wait. Firstly they have a hugely experienced master blender in John Ramsay, formerly of Edrington, who has been producing whisky for 40 years. Next, they are using sourced whiskies to make their own blends and blended malts to keep the interest going until they have their own mature and ready malt available for release.
Hopefully, this tried and tested model is strong enough to allow them revenue until the 8 Doors malt is actually ready. Similar to how the likes of Ardnamurchan, Ardnahoe and Ballindalloch have gone about things, where the whisky was allowed time to be released at the right moment, and arguably at the right price too. Let's hope they do not make the mistake of Lochlea, Glasgow or Raasay, who I feel all jumped the gun a little too early on releasing their first products at three years old. While not bad, it just wasn’t ready in my opinion.
I first came across 8 Doors a few years back while enjoying an online whisky tasting, where distillery manager Ryan Sutherland was in attendance. I’ve kept in touch since, and I was keen to get his take on the operations and goings on within 8 Doors and he was kind enough to reply to a few questions.
HF: I’m interested to know what the policy is for 8 doors on the sourced & in-house blends?
Is it the ambition for the distillery as an effective way of revenue generation? Or more to showcase skills or future ‘distillery-character’ ambitions?
Is there a plan to blend your own liquid into sourced whisky for a different type of blend?
RS: To put it simply, our policy on blending is quite a relaxed one. If we have stock available to work with then that’s great for us, but we do source pre-blended stock that we can tailor to our requirements. A good example of this is 11yo that uses a heavily sherried blended base that then laid the foundation for building complexity with other stock and allowing me to create a blend that was reminiscent of an older 80s/90s style. Another example would be our 8yo blend, which is a set recipe set by ourselves and blended off-site, where it is then sent to us in transport/refill sherry butts for bottling.
We’re very flexible as a smaller business and keen to showcase both the value and enjoyment of blending, which quite frankly is the cornerstone of whisky. 8 Doors has an ex-sherry dominant maturation policy and that does reflect through our blends and other Seven Sons releases. We hope to produce both malt and pot still grain whisky going forward at the distillery, which would allow us to pick and choose various in-house or crossover blend recipes. We have the capability to run various grains through our distillery thanks to the use of a mash conversion vessel, which can mash at stepped temperatures allowing for lower and higher grain rests where required for mixed grain bills.
HF: What is the cask selection process for the sourced liquid you’ve showcased under your Seven Sons labelling?
Is it a case of your source contact giving you the availability at that moment in time, or do you reach out to specific distilleries for that spirit character and style?
RS: To reflect what is expected from 8 Doors we have leaned primarily towards ex-sherry matured stock, with a mix of 1st, 2nd and 3rd fill options having become available. However, this won’t always be 100% and we have some interesting 1st fill and refill bourbon options becoming available shortly that highlight their respective distillery character.
It’s very much a case of seeing what is available and agreeing amongst the leadership team of what stock we think would work for releases. It’s currently not an easy market to work with due to pricing and nor is deciding on the suitability of mature stock whether it be for a small batch release, blending or a single cask format.
HF: Finally, Do you have a plan in place for how long you're letting your own liquid rest in casks before release?
RS: So officially we haven’t set a release date but we anticipate that to be around 5 years. The main reason is that we're using octaves and quarter casks (50L / 130L) and these will mature faster.
Thanks to Ryan at 8 Doors. Now onto the whisky.
Review 1/2
Seven Sons 8yo Blended Malt Scotch Whisky, 46.7% ABV
£31 paid - Sold Out, bought at auction
Some detail on this bottle from Ryan Sutherland:
The 8yo blended malt is Dalrymple (which is tea-spooned Ailsa Bay) matured in a 1st fill Ex-Oloroso European Oak hogshead. Stock is blended and held in refill sherry butts for a time before bottling.
Nose
Doughy. Yeasty with red grapes up front. Thick and full of caramel syrup sweetness. Delicately malty with a delicious creamy element floating around. Spiced with a hint of ginger and mixed spice. Plums. Raisins. Mashed peaches (just a whole load of stone fruits in a bowl!). Icing sugar and candied peel. Cubed pineapple. Blood orange with a hessian bag and dusty wood note at the end.
Palate
Silky and nicely balanced. Sweet, syrupy and a nice oily mouthfeel in there too. Delicious sherried element here that just lingers on and on with each sip. Banana ice cream and chocolate spread on top here, with pecan. More lactic-ness in the form of pistachio ice cream, paired with sticky toffee pudding. Orange marmalade. Such a lovely long finish on this one, drying slightly but deliciously sweet and balanced.
Score: 6/10 HF
Review 2/2
Seven Sons 11yo Blended Scotch Whisky, 46.7% ABV
£42 - Still available
Additional detail from Ryan on his own blend:
The 11 year old blend is a recipe created by myself, using a heavily sherried blend base and then using existing refill sherry malt stock. I've changed the profile to suit a style similar to that seen in 80s/90s blend recipes. Approx. malt percentage is 70% and is reminiscent of these sweeter and higher malt content recipes.
Nose
Buttered popcorn. Vanilla custard and rhubarb & custard hard confectionary. Cashew butter. Lovely and sweet with a spiced edge to it. A hint of clove and mixed spice. Some orchard fruits and tinned pineapple also. Warm milk. Cream from a can. Flaky sugared oat cakes in abundance (reminds me of primary school desserts). Ending with salted caramel and raspberry jam.
Palate
Chewy toffee. Ginger biscuits. Those oats are there with a dusting of ground cinnamon and golden syrup. It's delicate, silky mouthfeel and that creaminess is there too, coating the tongue and mouth nicely. It has a weird, but nice, metallic lick to it…kinda like copper coins. More cream then blends into caramel and a nice nutty element. A medium finish on this, which is bright and brings forth a clove oil rounded note toward the end as it fades off. This is something I'd have imagined was crafted back in the 80s, that old school feel (in my opinion). Very enjoyable.
The Dregs
The 8 year old blend was a steal at auction. Only £31, I’d yet to pull the trigger on any 8 Doors bottles and been intrigued at their releases. I’d seen a few floating about on Instagram and heard nothing but great things. I was delighted to hear that this was a teaspooned Ailsa Bay. I’d never had Ailsa Bay before, another Lowland whisky experience to add to the list and a whisky I would have listed as a soft Speyside if I’m honest. A flavourful blended malt in a growing category, with such value for money, it’s a bottle I’ll find hard to reach past.
However, the 11 year old blended scotch is a level above in terms of enjoyment and experience. This might sound weird, but each sip brought me back to memorable whiskies that made me fall in love with this spirit in the first place; the texture, flavour and experience was all there.
On the picture front, both bottles arrived with me at different stages this year and I just thought of merging both reviews together. Once the 11 year old blend landed I threw together some pictures for this piece and got stuck into the liquid. Bar your basic blended scotch bottles we can pick up at our local Supermarket, it’s a category I’d have turned my nose up at to be honest. I’d never got along with grain whisky in the past, for me there’s always a nasty PVC glue element to anything I've sampled before. This 11 year old had none of that. It was delicately balanced with flavour, mouthfeel and overall grip. It grabbed attention yet allowed me to sit back comfortably all at the same time.
A quick note on the bottle shape of these Seven Sons whiskies. It has a unique lip on the shoulder which captures any trickling whisky nicely. Keeps it all clean and limits any big spills. Well done to the design team on this one.
A huge thank you to Ryan for the help and comments on 8 doors and the Seven Sons whisky they have released. His craft, experience and passion came through to me via his reply and the whisky he has blended here. I’m a fan, I’ll subscribe to this distillery and I am excited to taste what’s to come.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. HF